Peruvian prison massacres

The Peruvian prison massacres occurred on June 18–19, 1986, after a series of riots in the San Pedro, Santa Mónica, and El Frontón prisons in Lima and Callao. The military repression of these riots resulted in the loss of at least 224 lives.

During the internal conflict in Peru, the bloody campaign by the Peruvian Maoist group Shining Path was responsible for the deaths of thousands of inhabitants of the rural regions of Peru. The Military of Peru, which had been dispatched to put down the insurgency, was also responsible for the deaths of thousands of Peruvians, as it treated campesinos as potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.

At the beginning of his 1985–1990 term, President Alan García demonstrated an interest in changing the counter-subversive strategy of his predecessor, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, with the purpose of reducing human rights violations against the civilian population, by calling on the civil society to propose solutions to the problem of political violence in Peru. Nevertheless, his government authorized a swift and violent takeover of the prisons to regain control, placing Peru's human rights violations back into the national and international spotlight.

June 18, 1986 6:00 AM Lima - Peru, prisoners rioted within multiple prison facilities in Lima and Callao. The riots took place while a congress of the Socialist International, of which Alan García's APRA political party was a member, was being conducted in Lima. The prisoners in San Juan de Lurigancho, El Frontón, and the women's prison in Santa Mónica, who had tacit control of the prison interiors, rose up and took prison guards and three journalists as hostages. They demanded the immediate release of 500 people imprisoned for terrorism. García and his government were caught off-guard by the uprising. At 10:00 AM an emergency cabinet session began with the participation of García and military commanders. Three hours later, the Minister of the Interior, Abel Salinas, announced that if the prisoners did not surrender, the prisons would be retaken by force. That day, the Shining Path launched a wave of attacks in Lima that left several dead.

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